OpenCloud - possible Nextcloud replacement/alternative?

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I’ve been seeing a bit on YouTube lately about OpenCloud:

I understand it’s the same folks as were behind Owncloud (the ones that didn’t spin off to Nextcloud, anyway), and rather than being LAMP-based, it’s Go-based, with flat-file data storage rather than a database. As a result, performance is said to be better (and performance certainly isn’t Nextcloud’s strong suit).

I haven’t played with it as yet–their preferred deployment is via one giant Compose stack (see opencloud/deployments/examples/opencloud_full at main · opencloud-eu/opencloud · GitHub - the .env file alone is 300 lines long) that wants to grab ports 80 and 443 for itself and thus doesn’t appear to play nicely with an existing reverse proxy setup. But it sounds like it may have some potential.

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I have already asked myself this question, as OpenCloud is now being heavily promoted in Germany. With Peer Heinlein [1] [2] [3], the German godfather of mail servers, it has a supporter who lends the whole project weight and credibility.

When I think of secure email or private cloud storage, I don’t think of Proton, but rather Mailbox.org.

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I created an app to test opencloud in NS8, it’s available from my repo. A valid certificate seems needed, a self-signed one didn’t work in my tests.
This is just opencloud, so for example keycloak or clamav from the compose stack are missing.
Login is admin:admin.

OpenCloud Documentation: https://docs.opencloud.eu/

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You are soooo smart!

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I confirm that the app can be installed and used.

The scope of administration options is significantly more limited than in NC, esp.

  • AD integration
  • The admin profile cannot be edited (e.g. to change the email address).
  • SMB shares as external storage
  • and the expansion with packages from the App Store does not work.

It also does not appear that this is to be expected in a manner comparable to NC.

On the other hand, the response speed in the GUI is impressive. Much smoother than in NC… my subjective impression.

But you surely know that yourself, dear @mrmarkuz

But the speed with which you made the app available is unmatched.

At the moment, OpenCloud still seems like a design study, not yet ready for productive use, as one would expect from NC.

But I could imagine that this will soon change on the development side. It might be worth keeping OC on your radar.
Many thanks!

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@mrmarkuz , any chance this app will/can be updated / matured please? To me it would be a serious alternative to Google Drive/One, and with the immich app, an replacement for Google services I currently use. Cheaper, safer and more private.

I rather pay Contabo and have my own private server :wink: (no commercial intended)

@robb , how are you? How is the Proton journey going?

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I don’t know if it will help Markus, but they do now document deployment behind an existing reverse proxy:

They waste a lot of space on Nginx and certbot, which I’d think anyone who’d be doing this would either (1) know already, or (2) have their own ideas for proxy and cert management (e.g., Traefik, Caddy), but I guess it’s better to over-document than under-.

I haven’t tried this out as yet, but may play around with it some. I see they do have desktop and mobile apps available, and have documented a data migration path from Nextcloud using rclone–pretty clunky, but it’s something.

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I provided an update to Opencloud 3.3.0, available in Software Center.

@danb35 thanks for the links. As regards the reverse proxy, it’s as you wrote. We use traefik so the reverse proxy part is already finished.

The migration part is very interesting. It could be provided by a migration script on NS8 for general migration and maybe also in the NS8 migration tool…

I don’t know if the app store is available in the container version but it’s possible to configure some apps, see GitHub - opencloud-eu/opencloud-compose: 🎼

I’d try to include Collabora in the next version, Radicale calendar server could be nice too.

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Does this version currently support LDAP authentication against NS8 domain(s) pls?

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No, unfortuntely not. LDAP seems only supported via keycloak AFAIK.
I hope to find a solution without needing to add an identity provider like keycloak.

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There is also a very nice OpenCloud desktop client.

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Hey @LayLow
Thnx for the mention. I am doing ok. Just finishing a 2 yr education programm.

I still have a NS8 server running @ Contabo. Not too many services on them, since I find it not the best usecase for NS8 to run on a VPS. Unfortunately there is (imo) too little possible in terms of security/firewall etc. Most services are directly connected to internet.
Maybe I haven’t bothered enough to find out if a secure VPS option is possible.
The proton journey is ok. Mail is my first concern. Biggest problem I face is the lack of a native linux client for the online document storage. But using Rclone, I still can do regular backups to Proton of my local files.
As you might have noticed I am way less active. But still visiting the forums now and then.
Stay safe and best regards, Robb

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You might be interested in ‘loosely’ reading this.

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